Engineering professor Webster named co-director of new U.S.-India partnership

Brown University is partnering with an Indian institution to further
research into the emerging field of biomaterials – the creation of artificial and organic materials that are compatible with the human body, such as those used for contact lenses, joint replacements, and dental crowns.

Thomas Webster
The Indo-U.S. Center for
Biomaterials for Health Care is the largest international research
center funded by the Indo-U.S. Technology Fund, a nonprofit society
established by the Indian and U.S. governments in 2000. The
co-directors of the virtual center are Thomas Webster, associate
professor in the Division of Engineering and the Department of
Orthopaedics, and Bikramjit Basu, an associate professor in the
Department of Materials and Metallurgical Engineering at the India
Institute of Technology at Kanpur.

Biomaterials are used to
manufacture prostheses, implants, and surgical instruments. These
materials are designed to be accepted by the human body, and they can
be natural (collagen, cellulose) or synthetic (metallic, alloy,
ceramic, plastic).

The center seeks to capitalize on the emergence of
India’s manufacturing base, and one goal is to identify the most
promising areas to explore. “What is exciting for me is you have all
this talk of India becoming a major manufacturer in the next 10 to 20
years,” Webster says. “It’s critical that not only with the auto
industry or electronics, but also with biomaterials, that the United
States tries to help establish this manufacturing base for American
companies.”

Other members of the biomaterials center are the University of
Washington, the University of Texas at San Antonio, and the Indian
Institute of Technology Bombay (Mumbai). Partners in government and
industry include the Non Ferrous Technology Development Center and the
National Metallurgical Laboratory in India, and Materials Processing
Inc., a Texas-based private company.

Webster said the group is already pursuing research in bioceramics –
creating synthetic materials that can act like bones. The Indian side
will seek to artificially create the ceramic component of bone, while
other researchers will try to develop sensors to determine if real bone
is growing on the artificial structure.

Webster said he hopes to lure other faculty at Brown into this and other research projects and to help the center grow.

“There
has been a big international push at Brown in the last few years, for
Brown reaching across borders,” Webster says. “I hope other countries
will recognize Brown as a strong biomaterials focal point, and that
we’ll become world renowned in biomaterials research.”